Name: MJ Lenderman On How COVID Started His Career
Uploaded: 2026-02-13T14:00:16.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'MJ Lenderman On How COVID Started His Career' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'MJ Lenderman On How COVID Started His Career' from TAFS Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-13. Transcript available.

- When do you feel like you kind of popped for the first time?
Was that in the last three years?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
What was the moment where you're like,
"Oh shit, it's going good."
- Oh yeah.
I mean, that keeps happening in a way that's like...
- What was the moment where you realized
people knew who you were?
And how did you deal with that?
'Cause it's obviously a stressful situation.
- During COVID, people were talking about it online a lot.
- Yeah.
- And once we started playing shows again,
the crowds were bigger.
- Yeah.
- I guess.
And then, but especially like my record,
both songs came out in April, 22.
- Two.
- Yeah.
- And then by the end, it got put on a bunch of lists.
And then I started noticing like a lot of talk about it.
- And now you have to go to GQ, man of the year.
- Yeah.
- Dude.
- But I...
Yeah, that was weird.
I'd stopped using socials.
But I do...
- You can't...
Don't look.
- I lurk on Twitter.
Just...
- Just for Fuentes clips?
- Yeah.
- Fuentes highlight?
- YouTube shorts?
- YouTube shorts is fun, yeah.
My Instagram reels algorithm is the only safe place for me
on the internet.
It's the only place where it's not scary.
Twitter, my Twitter algo has gone haywire.
- Dude, yeah.
- Yeah, it's scary.
- Not good.
- Yeah, there was like, there was like killings for a while.
And then, so, but shorts is still just funny.
Or reels, reels is funny.
It's still people saying things the wrong way.
It's still people falling over.
The internet used to be funny.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Now, it's scary.
Now, it's just like slur, MJ Lenderman's song,
Nick Flint.
- Geese.
- Exactly, yeah.
- I'm not saying those are all the same kind of thing.
I'm just saying it's just...
- This is what people are talking about.
- This is what people are talking about, yeah.
- Yeah, it's made a huge difference, though,
to not be looking at that as much.
- I mean, it just doesn't matter, dude.
I mean, at the end of the day,
you just wanna make tracks, right?
- Yeah, yeah, it's like,
and that just gets in the way.
It's a distraction.
- It doesn't matter even what people, like,
the people think, really.
You just, like, as long as...
Like, have you ever felt good after, like,
like, finishing a song?
- Every time it feels awesome to finish a song,
and then sometimes, within the next couple days,
it's like, oh, it wasn't that good, but...
- Right, like, you look...
I feel like everything I've ever done,
I look back on it, I'm like,
I would change that, I would change that,
I would change that, right?
- Yeah, but I think it's cooler to just move forward and...
- You have to just forget about it.
- Forget it.
- Yeah, yeah.
The worst part is, like,
you get really excited at the beginning,
and you're like, this is gonna be awesome,
and then you try it, and you're like,
I am a fucking loser.
I have no talent, and then you fight against it,
and you just end a project,
and you put it out, and you forget about it.
It's the best way to work, honestly.
- You figuring that out now is huge.
- Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of things that I've released
that I don't love, but it's cooler to just move forward.
Get better every time.
- You get better every time.
- Right, yeah.
- Yeah, if you're just trapped up,
super concerned with only putting out things that are genius,
then you'll never put anything out.
- Well, also, you suck, too.
- And you suck, yeah.
- You suck at music.
If anyone finishes something, and they're like,
this is amazing, then they suck, right?
No one, like, the only way you get...
What I found is, like, in the middle stage, right,
with the stage from, like, this is so exciting,
to, uh, whatever the fuck, just put it out.
The middle stage is, like, the gym.
That's, like, uh...
- The reps.
- They hate, it's the reps, right?
It's like, I hate myself, I hate the song, I suck,
but, like, fighting through it is, like,
kind of the part where you get better.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- I agree.
- Yeah, that's putting up shots.
- Yeah, putting up some shots,
a little bit of discipline, reading some books, maybe.
- What's your three-point, uh, percentage?
Empty gym.
- 50.
- 50.
Dude, isn't it crazy that league is, like,
if they're empty gym, it's kind of, like, 80.
They're so good at basketball, they're, like...
- My biggest basketball game I ever played...
- Yeah.
- ...had 10 threes.
- 10 threes?
- Yeah. - You were a sniper?
- I was a sniper, dude.
- Really? What grade was that?
- Seventh.
- Seventh grade, 10 threes?
- So, you were strong enough not to, like,
from your chest?
You had form?
- I had form.
- Dude, have you ever linked with Steph?
He's North Carolina.
- Oh, yeah, he went to Davidson.
- Davidson, there you go.
- He loves Paramore, I just learned.
- Dude, have you seen that clip of him
at the fucking Benson Boone concert
wearing the fucking, wearing the hat?
- No.
- I have a theory on the NBA,
which is the fact that LeBron is so bad
at any type of, like, trying to be cool thing
has completely, like, shielded Steph
from any type of, like, scrutiny.
Like, Steph has been, like, a genius player
in an era where there was another genius player,
and he's been protected.
- Yeah, all their energy's put into
being good at basketball.
They don't have any skills at anything else.
- I just know that LeBron's, like, team is like,
we will be doing creative on this,
and it's always just a fucking brick.
It's like the Hennessy thing you saw, right?
- Was that when he said he was going to make an announcement?
- Yeah.
- Everybody thought he was going to retire?
- And it was on October 7th.
It said, "I'm making an announcement October 7th, 2025."
And it was an ad for Hennessy.
Did the girls leave?
- One remaining.
- Some of them.
- Thank God.
Okay, okay.
Dude, we've never had so many girls in here before.
- I know.
- Yeah.
- Zach brought 'em home.
- The last girl here was Mia Khalifa.
All right, I was telling you last night
you should get in an Indie Rock pickup game.
I thought you were dapping me.
- Oh.
- Yeah.
- We can dapp later.
- I wonder who would be in the Indie Rock pickup game.
Thurston Moore?
- He's tall as fuck.
- He's tall as fuck.
- He's probably not very good, though.
- No, he's trash.
- He seems like a clumsy boy.
- He's definitely trash at ball.
- There's a lot of tall guys out there.
- You're obsessed with other guys' heights that are--
- No, you said that Cameron was way taller than you.
He was one inch taller.
- You don't think he's taller than me?
- You're already 6'3", dude.
- I'm not 6'3".
- What are you?
6'2"?
- I don't know.
My license says I'm 5'11".
- My license says I'm 6'3".
- Really?
- Yeah, 'cause I'm trying to impress bouncers.
I'm like, just don't look, just look at this.
Do girls try to get with you 'cause you're a rock star?
No?
- I don't know.
I stay at home a lot.
- You stay at home.
- Are you scared of girls?
Is it kind of like a hard day's night situation?
- I have three sisters.
My life is ruled by women.
- Yeah, yeah, they stress you out?
- Sometimes, but--
- And they tell you you can't get any girlfriends?
- They say I can't have girlfriends.
- I wonder what it's like.
I mean like--
- It's hard adding a fourth to the fold.
- Zach, Zach our friend over here,
he told me that girls learned the words to his songs
at his gig.
- Oh, Zach.
- That's kind of hard.
- Was there a moment where you realized
that the kids knew the words?
- Yeah, 'cause they're so fucking loud.
Like, sometimes it'll be like, they want to be heard
and it's like, I'm trying to sing a song
and I start forgetting the words 'cause I'm like--
- 'Cause it's lame to know.
- They're distracting me.
- They're being lame for knowing the words.
- It's cool that people are that committed.
- Are they annoying?
- Sometimes.
- Yeah, they're fucking, yeah.
What's the most annoying?
- This guy was in, he was at like three shows in a row
and he kept telling me to take my shoes off.
He said, "Let me see those feet."
- No, maybe he was from the website WikiFeet though.
- Maybe he's trying to snap some photos for WikiFeet.
- Yeah, yeah, he's like, I'm a thorough guy.
I need the Lenderman's feet, yeah.
- After night three of doing that, I was like,
who is saying this?
And I look at the guy, he's wearing every piece of merch
that I have.
- To the show?
- Yeah.
- That is the worst look.
- And then once I called him out, he got embarrassed.
- What did you say to make him feel embarrassed?
- I said, "Stop it."
- Off from the stage?
- Off mic, I was being nice.
- Did you kick him in the head with your shoe?
- Josh Homie style?
- Yeah, you're like, I love these shoes.
- No.
- So what relationship did COVID have to your career?
Like you were touring and then they cut it out?
- Yeah, but then I was like working at an ice cream store.
So through working there, I got unemployment
and I started making more money than I ever made in my life.
- Yeah, I know.
It happened to a lot of friends.
It was the most prolific period of time for me
'cause we had a really, really fortunate living situation,
too.
- Where, you had a nice place?
- Over by the Creekside Tap House that your boy works at.
- Yeah, yeah.
My boy's brother, I didn't know he had a brother for a while.
Yeah, so you guys wrote a ton of music.
- Yeah, it was like the only, it was a weird like view of adulthood
'cause I turned 21 right before that happened and then I have all this free
time
and more money than I've ever had.
- Yeah.
- And just time to actually focus on making stuff and it was a pretty prolific
time.
- Do you feel like you got better?
- Definitely within that time, that's the best I had felt about like making
things.
But once Turing came back, I started being like, "When am I going to have two
years off again?"
- Dude, wouldn't it be nice, dude?
- Yeah.
- Wuhan, dude.
- I mean, I feel like I would do it better this time.
- Yeah.
- It sounds like you did it great.
- Oh yeah, I mean for the parts of it.
- I started painting.
- Yeah, I painted a lot too.
- I painted, yeah.
How was your painting?
- It was fine.
It was nice for the brain though.
I think I was getting ideas while I was painting.
- I would listen to, I had an archive of Howard Stern and-
- I got obsessed with Howard Stern.
- Yeah, yeah.
- But Lint Biscuit guitar auditions and Beetlejuice comes in completely naked.
He's like, "This is my guitar right here."
- We were talking yesterday about Beetlejuice, the Obama phone call.
- When Beetlejuice says he doesn't like Obama, they get, some guy calls it as
Obama.